Adidas Sues Skechers for Trademark Infringement of “Stan Smith” Shoe Design

On September 14, 2015, Adidas launched a lawsuit in the United States District Court in the District of Oregon against Skechers USA for a variety of claims ranging from trademark infringement and deceptive trade practices to breach of contract and unfair competition.

The lawsuit centres around Adidas’s “Stan Smith” shoe and Skechers allegedly infringing “Onyx” shoe.  Adidas’s complaint alleges that the Skechers Onyx shoe infringes on Adidas’s registered trademark rights in the “Three Stripe Mark” and “SUPERNOVA Mark”. Adidas also claims that the “Onyx” shoe inappropriately trades on the established goodwill associated with the trade dress of the Stan Smith shoe.

Following previous trademark disputes between Adidas and Skechers, the parties had entered into a number of settlement agreements placing limitations on Skechers’ use of confusingly similar designs. In the earliest settlement agreement between the parties, related to a dispute in 1994, Skechers acknowledged Adidas as the rightful owner of “Three Stripe Mark” and agreed to cease using confusingly similar marks.  In this most recent lawsuit, Adidas is claiming that Skechers is in breach of these previous settlement agreements.

Adidas has also released a statement claiming that this lawsuit was launched in order to protect Adidas’s valuable intellectual property rights, and that the organization would not stand by as Sketchers sells copies of the iconic Stan Smith shoe using website keyword searches for “Adidas Originals” and “Stan Smith”.